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A Dance

2′ 5″ w x 2′ 5″ h

My playful sculpture A Dance is now on the dance studio wall of The Asheville Ballet Inc. and Asheville Academy of Ballet and Contemporary Dance Inc. This is a marvelous dance school and professional performing dance company combined, founded in 1964.

It occupies a special place in my heart because it was my daughter’s second home for years through middle and high school. There she could express herself passionately, gain skill in an inspirational art form, build strength and flexibility, make good friends within a team, overcome stage fright, perform community service, and come home exhausted and happy. So–this sculpture honors and celebrates its founder/director Ann Dunn; its teachers, performers, patrons, and students; and the audiences that have relished its offerings for so many years.

Asheville Ballet is known for collaborating with other dancers, choreographers, musicians, poets, and visual artists. The company has performed all over the world. Students from the Asheville Academy have been accepted in major dance conservatories and apprenticeships and have gone on to perform with renowned ballet and contemporary dance companies, musicals, and films. The Academy has been able to offer student scholarships and free tickets to performances based on need. In short, this school and dance company are rooted in the regional community’s culture, while its influence reaches far and wide.

Dancers there have commented on the sculpture:

Teresa Luckman: I love the warmth of the wood, and the way the shades, shapes, and depths of all the individual pieces are interwoven like dancers coming together in choreography and community.     

Fleming Lomax: The sculpture encapsulates a foundational aspect of dance: each shape contained within the larger sculpture could exist on its own as a unique work of art, just as each individual dancer exists as a single entity but also an irreplaceable part of a collective whole, the Dance itself.       

Megan Jones Medford: When creating a dance, movement can be just as powerful as stillness. Elana’s sculpture has captured both of these concepts beautifully.